1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a sheet folding configuration, and more specifically, to a device for folding sheets having different formats and depositing the sheets in folded form.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
A device of the kind herein under consideration is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,701,155, wherein there is described a mechanism for folding sheets of drawings in the various formats A1, A2 or A3, which drawings are conventionally provided with a legend at the bottom right-hand corner. Sheets of drawings are fed in the feed path of this known device with an orientation such that the drawing, and hence also the legend, is legible when viewed from a specific side of the feed path. Looking in the direction of the feed, the legend is positioned at the left-hand side of the trailing part of the sheet fed in the longitudinal direction. At the first folding station an A1 sheet is folded four times in the transverse direction, and A2 and A3 sheets are folded twice. The packet thus folded in zig-zag fashion is then fed to the second folding station with the legend situated at the top. At the second folding station the zig-zag folded A1 and A2 sheets are double-folded and the zig-zag folded A3 sheet is passed on without any further folding. The sheets folded in this manner are then deposited in a collecting station in a uniform way, i.e. with the legends at the top.
One of the features of this known device is that in order to ensure that the folded sheets of drawings are deposited with their legends on the same side, the sheets must always be fed with their longest side parallel to the feed direction, and this is hereinafter referred to as a longitudinal transit. Since, in the case of the longitudinal transit, the processing capacity of the device is inversely proportional to the length of the longest side of a sheet of drawings, the known device has the disadvantage that the processing capacity is adversely affected in order to achieve the above uniform deposition.